


I Miss the Taste of the Sweeter Life

by dispatch



Category: Batman (Comics), DCU (Comics)
Genre: Cats, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-09
Updated: 2014-07-09
Packaged: 2018-02-08 02:42:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1923714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dispatch/pseuds/dispatch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sunday has Tim flailing around his bed room, cat trying to climb his face. Every time Tim thinks he starts to get them separated, out comes the claws and the cat has a new grip on his head.</p><p>Lesson learned; don’t vacuum with the cat in the room.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Miss the Taste of the Sweeter Life

**Author's Note:**

> Older bar owning Tim with beard and a cat. Tim's personality is a little different because he's older and why has he done what he's done. My version at least, since I have yet to read the latest comics. Title, because I suck at titles, is literally the first line to the song playing on the radio right now. Maps by Maroon 5. I may want to write a version from Jason's POV. It will probably have more romance in it, and less cat.

“When did we get a cat?” May, the mid-shift bartender, asks when she stops by the office for her check. Tim eyes said cat. Its spread across a box of Jim Beam, tail swishing as it watches them leisurely. It wasn’t there five minutes ago. Or he didn’t think it was. Maybe.

“We didn’t.”

“Oh,” May leans over the cat, grins as it sniffs her hand. “Well, you should keep him. Her? It? You look like a dude. You gonna keep Boss Man company, aren’t ya, little kitty? Boss seemed kind of lonely.”

“I am not lonely,” Tim tries to protest. May waves him off as she grabs her paystub.

“Well of course you aren’t, that’s what pets are for.”

*

One Tuesday about a year ago, Tim face planted when he tripped over the gate to the bar taking out an entire shelf of bourbon. May likes to say she broke a rib laughing at him. To be fair he had been distracted by the customer walking through the door. So, long story short, Tim has decided he doesn’t like Tuesdays.

And of course, that Tuesday afternoon one of the customers comments on the cat.

“What’s his name?” The man nods towards the cat that is now sitting inside the same box from before. The cat eyes them curiously over the ledge. Tim wipes down his end of the bar and May slides the Tom Collins across to the man.

“Well, technically,” May finger quoted with enthusiasm, “He isn’t ours.”

One of the fry cooks, Tony, leans through the partition. “We’re calling him Jim Beam,” He says it helpfully. Tim knows Tony is the one who let the cat inside in the first place when he found him ‘half-starved and crying like a little babe.’

“We aren’t calling him anything. We serve food. We can’t pass a health inspection with a cat walking around the place,” Tim turns around and snaps. Which is a mistake, a stupid mistake. Tony drops back into the kitchen with a snicker and May whistles innocently. Tim can’t shake the stare. Green eyes that he’s managed to ignore for a year seeming to bore into him.

“He seems pretty happy. You should keep him,” Jason says. Tim swallows, jerks back. His office. He should totally go to his offi- he yelps when he falls over the gate again. Half a dozen shot glasses fall with him.

*

There is an offering on his office chair. Like a gift to its benefactors. The cat looks pleased with himself. Tim stares long and hard at the tiny little bat body before sweeping it into the garbage bin.

He scratches the cats check lightly, lets it crawl into his lap as he pulls out the books. “You did good.” He murmurs into its soft head.

*

Another Tuesday and Tim stumbles out of his office to find Jason crouched in the hall way, petting the cat with long strokes that has it arching after his hand. Tim wants to yell. He wants to throw something. Mostly, Tim doesn’t want him to touch his cat, which is stupid, because Jim Beam’s not even his cat.

He, irrationally and childishly, wants to fight. Bring up things that happened years ago. (Before the fall out. Before Tim picked up everything and decided it was better to just leave, to just fake his death and drop of the face of the earth hoping no one would ever find him) But the topics worn over with well-practiced avoidance. Fragile with how brittle it’s become.

Except—

Apparently Jason decided it was time. Jason came and found him and just sort of hovers in the back ground; he waits like its Tim’s move and he’s still waiting even though it’s been a fucking year.

He edges around the pair and back into the barroom. They watch him warily as he goes by. Tim slams through the door when Jason starts to look like he is about to say something.

*

Saturday there are (finally) a few fights. More like, Tim finds the fights. Two loud and overly enthusiastic individuals have a screaming fight over a foul ball at a local game. Jim Beam trips them as they are escorted out the door.

There’s a handsy bastard who can’t keep his hands from groping anyone on two legs. Tim smashes his face into the wall, careful not to knock off the black and white photo of the park he sometimes runs in, he had bought it from this young boy the summer before. An aspiring photographer who wanted to travel the world. Tim misses that. Having a dream you can chase after.

The drunk flails blindly. Tim twists his arm till he screams.

The worse though is one Tim can’t really justify himself getting physical about. But, oh, how he wants to have something to actually do, a physical target, an easy fix to something that always seems so complicated. Family should be a good thing, he thinks bitterly.

May hides, crouched by his feet. Her arms wrapped tightly around Jim Beam like he can block out the sound of the demanding voice. So he breathes immovable brick wall, as the older, stern backed woman tries to stare him down.

The day leaves him tired.

*

Jim Beam likes to chase the little laser pointer Tim finds in the back room. Tim has him running circles around the tables for half the morning before they open. They take a break over a tuna sandwich, huddled in the back of the kitchen.

It’s rumbling purr a constant presence in the quite of the morning. He and the cat slink back into his office when first shift shows up.

*

It becomes the modus operandi. Every single day, the cat following him around the bar. From the office to the barroom, then at the end of the day he follows him up to his flat above the place where, Tim has no idea how it happened since he wasn’t the one to buy the stuff, there is now bags of cat food and a scratching post by his bed.

Tim wakes to Jim Beam needling his chest. Tiny claws that prickle as they catch his skin through his shirt. Tim scratches him behind his ears and the cat blasts him with contentment and purrs. They lay like this until he drags himself up for his run. The cat always meets him at the door when he gets back, tactic changed to ‘feed me now.’ Later, Tim watches him re-explore the flat over his second cup of coffee.

Tim is surprisingly ok with this; this new pattern that is his life.

*

Except on Tuesdays. Tuesdays the cat forgets he even exists and suddenly he’s Jason’s cat.

Little traitor.

*

Sunday has Tim flailing around his bed room, the cat trying to climb his face. Every time Tim thinks he starts to get them separated, out comes the claws and Jim Beam has a new grip on his head.

Lesson learned; don’t vacuum with the cat in the room.

*

Jason doesn’t show up one Tuesday and Jim Beam is perfectly fine with that as he over saw the bar atop his box.

He doesn’t show up the following Tuesday either. Jim Beam still didn’t seem to care. Tim tells himself it’s nothing. Catches himself scrolling through the front page of international news instead of double checking payroll. It’s nothing. He doesn’t care, he tells the cat. Jim Bean bats his hand with his paw before lying on the keyboard.

Tim wants to move him. He wants to check to see if his connections still exist. The cat nips on his fingers lightly when he reaches to scoop him up. Tim pulls back. Sorry, he mutters as the tail whacks the table in agitation. Tim pets him lightly down his back, properly reprimanded. Maybe it’s a sign, he thinks. Maybe Jim Beam knows things… Right.

Maybe he needs to stop talking to a cat.

*

It’s Thursday and raining. The bar is quiet, not even the regulars bothering to come in. Tim sends Tony home early and closes the kitchen. Leans against the bar, watches a soccer game. Jim Beam is hiding under a booth, every once in a while a little paw flashes out nabbing at the air.

He’s thinking of maybe closing the bar entirely when Jason walks in. Alive and not even limping.

Tim is unprepared, no time to hype himself up. Which may be a good thing, he muses, as he drops a Tom Collins in front of him. Jim Beam has already found his way out of the booth and now sits on a stool beside Jason, suddenly fawning adoration, getting the attention he has been missing the last few weeks.

“Weren’t you more of a beer guy?” Tim surprises himself in asking. By the way he jerks to face him, his eyes wide, face slack, Jason is just as surprised. Tim wonders if this is like everything else, a topic too old to actually touch but is always there. Or maybe it’s because Tim is actually talking to him. Most likely that.

“Uh- Yeah. I am.” Jason chokes out. Tim stares at him, then down where Jason’s fingers are long and graceful around the rim of the glass. “Yeah. I guess it reminds me of Alfred, a bit. So, you know. Here’s to you, Alfred. Requiescat de pace, or some shit like that.”

Jim Beam stretches out between the seats. Paw flexing as he tries to swat Jason. Tim reaches across the bar and the cat turns toward him. Remembers he’s actually here to and changes targets as he demands pets and Tim laughs softly. Not so forgotten after all

When he glances up, Jason is staring at him, smile small and fond.

“Was it easy?” Jason starts. Stops. Like it’s something he doesn’t want to touch with a ten foot pole. Jason frowns, then rushes out sharp and bitter, “Just leaving like that? Leaving your life?”

“No, it was the hardest thing I’d ever done.” Tim admits. It’s weird though. Just like that. Years of tension suddenly feels gone. “And it took me years just to stop jumping at my own shadow. But, I did it. And I’m here and this is my life now and I don’t want to go back. Not really, at least. I get kind of bored, you know,” Tim stops. Tim can admit it to himself, for now at least. With Jim Beam rubbing against his palm, body practically vibrating like a tiny engine. And to Jason, since he is here as well; at this moment in time where Tim feels open and honest. “And lonely, I guess. But, I don’t want to go back. I have something here.”

Jason just nods. There are lines now – just a hint, really, but there – that weren’t there years ago. They show now as he scowls in thought, drops his gaze back to his drink, and Tim feels the need to add, “And Alfred hated gin.” Jason is surprised into a laugh. He throws back the drink. When he drops it, empty on the counter top, he is all brazen grin and defiance again. It is welcoming in its energy. Like there is still something between them and that hasn’t changed with the distance and the silence. Tim kind of hopes there is.

“Yeah, I know. That’s why I drink it.”


End file.
